>> myocal bar here in new york city is a steelers bar. at the risk of getting way too many free drinks or none other the rest of my life, i have to say it was exciting rest of the game. well done. thanks a lot. thanks to you at home for staying with us for this special sunday, sunday, sunday! two days to go, monster truck electi election derby special edition of the rachel maddow show. we've been waiting to do that all yearlong. today we saw the largest crowds we have seen at political rallies this entire election season. mitt romney spoke to an estimated 4,500 people in des moines, iowa. then he flew to ohio where 6,000 plus people showed up to hear him speak. then he went to pennsylvania. after that he bolted for virginia. this is a big, big day for the romney campaign. just as this is a big, big day for the obama campaign.

president obama's schedule includes a late night rally in aurora, colorado. also in cincinnati, ohio. the president drew a crowd of 23,000 people this afternoon in hollywood, florida, after 24,000 people turned out to hear him in virginia. think about that. 24,000 in virginia. 23,000 people in florida today. in concord, new hampshire, this morning, when 14,000 people turned out to hear president obama, that was the largest crowd ever assembled for a political event in the entire state in new hampshire. in the entire history of the state of new hampshire. i realize new hampshire may not be big, but new hampshire is old. and this is the biggest political rally ever held in the state of new hampshire for the entire time that new hampshire has existed. we cannot be sure why more people are turning out to hear president obama today than are turning out to hear mitt romney. maybe it's just the power of

incoupi incumbency. govern governor romney's rallies have been quite smaller, but these are quite good crowds all around. for both campaigns. in relative terms and in absolute terms. now it's the part of the campaign where we also start watching another variety of huge crowds. look at this. oh, man. crowds of people lining up to vote in florida. we have been getting reports that the wait for early voting in florida can last for an hour or two hours or four hours or five hours or eight hours. viewers of this show have been sending us these pictures of people losing entire workdays in an effort to cast a ballot. it's not as if florida had an accident where the situation surprised the officials in charge of running the election. florida had seriously long lines for early voting in the last election in 2008. after they had the long lines in

2008, florida's new republican governor rick scott last year decided to cut the days for early voting almost in half. obviously making a bad situation worse. on thursday florida democrats -- plus the nonpartisan league of women voters all asked gov forrick scott to do what previous republican governors have done when there have been long lines at florida polls. they asked him to extend early voting for one day, this day, sunday. speakerring to reporters on thursday, governor scott said no. he said he wontd do it. he said early voting ends on saturday night. never mind about the giant lines. when we came into work to put together this show, we found in our inbox this photo. voters, citizens of florida, americans, lined up in the dark. in this case in the predawn early morning dark hours of saturday waiting to vote. think about that. predawn. these people clearly hoped if

they got there early enough they could make it through the line in time to go to work or get home to their families for a regular saturday. nope, not this year, not with rick scott's rules restriking voting time. the line outside one place down the door and around the corner, down some more sidewalk. across the big lawn. four hours later when you got through that and made it inside the building, inside the library, you were still not done. the person reported waiting a total of eight and a half hours to vote in miami-dade county. happy saturday. welcome to democracy, florida style. i don't know how you spent your saturday night. in miami thousands of people appear to have spent thard night standing in line waiting to vote. everybody who got in line before the polls closed at 7:00 was supposed to be allowed to vote last night. at miami-dade, the wait was still several hours long.

o the last voter in miami-dade county checked into the voting place at 1:00 in the morning. have been there a minimum of six hours already by the time they checked in to vote. voting is not supposed to work like this. i'm not sure democracy as an institution or the way we choose our leaders can work like this. you are not supposed to need to bring food and water and a chair dmord to vote. you're not supposed to need an entire day off work or a sitter to watch your kid all day long in order to vote. that's what gov por rick scott said would be just fine. after seeing long lines, especially in south florida. after seeing long, long, long lines, he said, let's make them longer. let's make them longer for this election. long lines are fine with me. because governor rick scott would offer no help. south florida after asking for help on thursday night, south florida woke up to longer line this is weekend. very early this morning the

florida democratic party sued in federal court, asking a judge to do what the governor is refusing to do, mainly to make it possible to vote without enduring a marathon to do so. faced with that lawsuit and with the evident problem of voters not being able to vote a few ft. counties decided maybe they ought to do something on their own. they came up with a make do work around plan. you still could not technically early vote today in most of florida, but around the the city of tampa county, you could pick up an over the counter ab centiballot. fill it in there and hand it in there. you can do it all day in greater tampa. in orange county a judge ordered the day of early voting after a bomb scare kept the polls closed there for several hours. the situation in miami-dade county got really kind of nuts today. at least that's how it seems to me. i was watching reporting from miami-dade all day today. it started to feel like farce.

after people were still voting last night at 1:00 in the morning in miami-dade miami-dade finally said they would let people pick up absentee ballots today, fill them out and hand them in. okay so far, right? we have seen already what happens in florida these days when you offer people the chance to vote. it turns out they want to vote. and they try to vote. oh, no. we're not prepared for that. today nearly 200 people got in line in the town, a republican leading town. and the only place you can vote in miami-dade county. so voters turned up trying to vote have occasioned a freakout. the election staff locked the door. first they said they did have the equipment tor the staff. then they gave another reason. they said the republican mayor had not signed off on the plan. whatever the reason for miami-dade saying hey, come vote today. then when they showed up to

vote, they locked the doors on them. the crowd at that voting place would not leave. >> let us vote! let us vote! let us vote! >> one voter who waited with -- waiting for two hours with her 4-year-old grandson told "the miami herald" this is america, not a third world country. the herald says most people did stay in line even after elections officials closed the door on them. then somebody started towing cars out of the parking lot where people parked to be there, trying to vote. an hour later, after peoples cars were towed out of the lot they parked in order to be there, an hour later miami-dade reconsidered the decision to reconsider. the county relented and they opened the doors. they say anybody in line by 5:00 p.m. can cast an in person absentee ballot.

there were still 400 people waiting. we were told campaign workers started handing out water and granola bars because it's only reasonable to except they might be thirsty and tired and hungry and maybe furious by the time they got to vote. and frankly because they are heros for finishing what they started. maybe it's just me, but i did not grow up with the expectation that casting a ballot was supposed to be an endurance sport. it's not supposed to be an obstacle course. voting is a good and right and civic thing to do, but we do not expect it to be a matter of personal heroism. not on this scale. not for thousands of people. not because one republican governor says that is the way he wants it to be. i'll have steve kornaki here in a moment. but joining us now is a combatant in the current fight right now if nl. scott is the executive director of the florida democratic party suing for more early voting in the sunshine state of eight-hour

lines to vote. thank you for your time. i know you're very busy. >> thank you for having me. appreciate it. >> it was amazing watching the realtime reporting today coming out of south florida and what was going on there. first of all, let me ask you, if i got anything wrong in terms of trying to explain what's going on. and let me ask if you have any updates on the current battle over these early voting rules? >> well, you have it right, rachel. what we're seeing issen explosion of enthusiasm from florida voters, particularly democrats, all across the state. really having a record early vote. we had on saturday, the largest early vote in florida history. and it's just been great to see. but you've also seen the problems come with it when you have a republican governor who has decided he really doesn't want people to vote. we've had tremendously long lines. we decided we had to do something last night, which was file this lawsuit. but we've also seen our supervisors across the state step up on their own and allow folks to have what you correctly

call over the counter voting, which is essentially early voting in the large areas where we've seen a lot of the lines. >> in terms of the overall effect of this chaos today, however things were resolved ultimately in miami-dade today with just the fiasco, but also with the long, long, long waits for early votes and the confusion over wen and where people would be allowed to vote, is that confusion and that chaos itself suppressive? do fewer people end up voting because they're worried they don't know what to expect and they can't plan their lives around the uncertainty? >> well, you're absolutely right. this is not the way it's supposed to work. voting is supposed to be something we're making easier for people to do, not harder. but people are overcoming the obstacles. people want to vote in the election. people feel passionately about the president. his message has really broken through in florida. and people are overcoming obstacles. you called them heros and they

are. they're standing in line for eight, sometimes nine hours to vote. and i think that's incredible. it's important. and you're going to see us in florida on tuesday. >> what is your strategy from the democratic party's perspective in terms of tomorrow and election day as well? a lot more polling places will be open on election day. but we can expect given what we have seen so far that it's still tough. what is your party's strategy. >> well, tomorrow we'll have six counties to allow over the counter voting. we're already getting the word out to get folks out to the polls tomorrow who want to vote early the day before. a lot of people that rbt going to be able to vote on tuesday because they have to work. we have to make sure that gets done tomorrow. and then we're ready for tuesday. we have the largest, strongest ground game that florida has ever seen. we're ready for election day. and we think we're going to have a tremendous turnout on tuesday.

>> scott, thank you for being here tonight, sir. keep us posted. >> thank you. >> no, it's not rocket science here, right? i mean, the more opportunities people have to vote and the the easier it is to vote, the more people vote. the more people vote, both parties agree, the better it is for democrats. that's all this is. your voting rights are at the mersy of a partisan decision process and in this case partisan state leadership. that's all this is. after the 2008 election was over we learned the story of what turned out to be the most amazing or dramatic thing about that race. and it turns out that it was the behind the scenes chaos and drama between the mccain side and the palin side of the mccain palin ticket. we didn't know about it in 2008 until it was done and the post more t mortums on that campaign were told but it turned out to be an amazing story. this year we are learning that is playing autoall over again. for a press corp. so supposedly

obsessed with politics and the personalities involved, i can t no believe this is not getting more attention, but we have the story ahead. move back home after college. we were enjoying our empty nest. and now it's just a nest full of laundry. lucky underwear. we were going through so much of that bargain detergent... and the clothes didn't look as good. but since we switched to tide, we use much less. their clothes are looking much more...uh... what's the word? clean? employable. [ female announcer ] one cap of tide gives you more cleaning power than 6 caps of the bargain brand. [ mom ] that's my tide, what's yours?

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or your money back. if you watched any football today, did you at any point wonder which team the referees were playing for? the eyebrow raising truth about who is refereeing the election in almost all of the battleground states is coming up.

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so. in ohio this weekend voterseseses lining up to early vote. he said it was hard to find the end of the line. this photo of an early voting line in delaware county ohio came from an ohio public radio reporter who said the line wraps around the back of the building and that at that site up to 90-minute wait times are being reported. in akron, quote, this is like a third of the vote line. these shots of early voting by a huffington voter. see that white building on the end? the line wraps around that corn corn corner. the only reason early voting is happening in ohio at all is because of a court order? they changed course and backed

off that when it looked like it would be on the way to a citizens repeal the same way the unions laws was repealed. then the obama campaign and the democrats sued and won. but ohio republicans still did not give up. they fought tooth and nail to give ohioans fewer opportunities to vote. they took the case all the way to the united states supreme court and lost. the supreme court refused to allow the secretary of state to shut down the last three days of early voting. so in the end ohio republicans were not allowed to eliminate early voting in the final three days ahead of the election. but they are nothing if not dedicated committed to reducing the possibility for you voting in ohio. even with all the court rulings against them, they did manage to

cut down on early voting hours this weekend. that must have helped with the lines. republican secretary of state, the guy who tried to eliminate the early voting days all together, when he lost the battle he set the schedule for the last three days of early voting and said significantly fewer overall hours on this day than voters enjoyed pack in 2008. in '08 in the final three stretch ohio voters had 24 hours to early vote in franklin county, which is where columbus is and 18 and a half hours in cuyahoga county where cleveland is. this year a total of 16 hours over those three days. fewer hours of early voting is how you get lines that look like this. in places like columbus and cleveland and akron. it's an impediment to voting, and it is on purpose. here's another one not on purpose. "the new york times" reporting

in ohio the stronghold of ohio county which includes clevelands had more people vote early every day this year than in 2008, until monday. what happened monday? hurricane sandy. the day of the storm when the daily tally began to lack from the levels of four years ago. so barriers to voting this year are in some cases acts of god. sometimes they are also acts of man. like republican state election officials woshlging to make voting more difficult and less available. in either case, ohio hangs in the balance, as does the election. joining us now is steve kornacky. steve, it's good to see you and sit next to you at this awkward angle. >> very awkward. >> i'll give you the side eye while we discuss this. ohio is facing a double whammy in terms of voting rights. ohio is always important. it feels more important than in recent elections. we have john husted doing

everything he can to make it harder to vote in ohio. and we have the effects of weather in the democratic stronghold. which of the things do you think most important? >> one the the provisional ballot issue. that's with the new regulations put in place now where if you show up, you don't know what presing. you go to the wrong precinct and this tends to happen disproportionately in democratic areas. nobody can be sure how many are democratic ballots and republican ballot, but there are more democratic votes than republican. so he has mandated that you have to fill out the form if you're a voter, a provisional voter, where the burden is now on you to prove your identity on the form. it's not on the poll worker. it's you to fill out the form correctly. and if you screw it up at all with the last four digits of your social security number, anything like that, driver's license number, the vote is

thrown out. in 200840,000 provisional votes in the state were thrown out. with this new voting in place, it could be much higher. he is running at hols over john mccain in '08. if 40,000 votes were thrown out in '08 and you made that a more stringent requirement, if that number comes up, and obama is starting with 10,000 overall. it starts to get dicey there. >> then you look at giantly long lines. you look at fewer opportunities to vote early, which is also a typically early voting. and you end up with a situation with the way you vote and the way the votes are cast are tilting the playing field in a way that may tilt it all the way. >> that's the story of the polling we see nationally. there's a disparity between if you take all registered voters nationally, barack obama is winning that.

he's winning it by a good margin. if you go to likely voters, people most likely to show up, that's where they get an advantage. they are a lot more than the registered voter model. the more people vote, the better chances are for democrats. that's about republicans limiting the opportunity for that to expand and put the elect ratd in a more friendly mix for republicans. it's the same if you make provisional regulations more stringent, that will favor lower turnout. a more friendly mix of voters. you can ut early voting. you have really long lines. 10%, 15% of the people who show up in the lines say i don't want to wait six hours or i can't wait six hours. that's a smaller electorate.

they look at the likely number of voter polls and all of these regulations and all of these laws are detined so try to get the final results. >> let me ask you about one other thing i saw today. i don't know if you saw this. but the last -- final -- i guess supporter e-mails went out from both campaigns today. the romney campaigns final e-mail. the obama is get out the vote, please volunteer. please door knock. what does that reflect? i can't imagine what romney is still raising money for. right? >> he started so late with the pennsylvania ads. maybe he thinks two weeks after the election he can keep airing them there. the level with '08 are higher. that's really the main obstacle right now. if people rbt showing up, they don't win.

if they show up, they do win. >> steve kornacki, thanks for being here. very exciting times. i appreciate it. ahead, the super sad true love story of congressman paul ryan's day planner. this is a very weird story. stick around. would you like to know more about it? yeah, but let me put my wife on speaker. hi! hi. it's led and it has great picture quality. i don't know... it's ultra slim... maybe next year. you could always put it on layaway and pay a little at a time. alright. we'll take it! ah! i love you! hmm! ahem. football. [ male announcer ] shop now. get the hottest brands on your list today... like the lg 55 inch led tv. and put it on layaway now so you have more time to pay. walmart.

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okay, colorado, colorado, colorado. the last five polls of colorado, three of them show president obama leading. two of them show mitt romney leading. the website realclearpolitics does an average of all the polling on colorado, and their average right now has president obama up in colorado by 0.6%. 0.6. which means that the race for president in colorado is a tie right now. this is a person whose job it is to oversee elections in colorado. guy at the podium there. this is the person who largely decides how easy or how difficult to make voting in colorado. he is the person to decide whether or how to count the votes. he is the top elections official in a very close swing state. and you should get to know him. that's coming up. questions?

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day, talking to local tv reporters in the swing states with essentially his job on the campaign. after mr. ryan was picked as the number two on the republican ticket, politico commented up on today's story. after he was picked he did nearly 30 local tv interviews in ohio alone. he did 20 in virginia. he did 16 in iowa. abc news did a big feature an how paul ryan had done more than 100 local interviews in the swing states already. the point of the campaign bragging an how much they have paul ryan talking to local reporters was i think to present a positive alternative story line to explain why he wasn't taking questions from the national press. though the campaign frequently makes mr. ryan available for local broadcasters, they have yet to hold a press conference with his traveling press corp.

don't think he's being protected from hard questions. he talked to the local press a lot. they plan to keep him on a steady diet of local interviews heading into november 6th. that's not how it worked out. they stopped him cold after this one went horribly wrong. >> i also wanted to ask about gun violence in the cities. let's listen in. this did not end well. >> it did not end well. but it started out just fine. the reporter covers flint michigan for the abc affiliate there. flint is a great city but it has tons of trouble. it's one of the most violent cities in the country. so he asks paul ryan about gun violence, and this is what happened. >> does this country have a gun problem? >> this country has a crime problem. >> not a gun problem? >> no. i mean, if you take a look at

the gun laws we have, i don't think president obama is proposing more gun laws. we have good strong gun laws. we have to make sure we enforce the laws. we have a lot of laws not being properly enforced. we need to make sure to enforce the laws. the best thing to prevent violent crime is to bring opportunity to the inner cities. it's to teach people good discipline, good character. that's what charities and civic groups and churches do to help one another realize the value in one another. >> and you do that by the big tax cut? >> that's your words, not mine. >> thank you very much, sir. >> that was kind of strange, trying to stuff words into people's mouth. >> well, i don't know if it's strange. sounds like you're trying to put answers to questions. >> okay. so the paper comes up in front of it. paul ryan actually made quite a bit of news in that one

interview. specifically just in a that one answer. first he said president obama isn't proposing new gun laws, which will come as a shock to the national rifle association, which loves to run ads says that president obama is secretly stealing all your guns. then he said when people don't have much money the cause of poverty is people haven't been taught good character and good discipline. >> but the best thing to help prevent violent crime in the inner cities is to bring opportunity in the inner cities. it's to help teach people good discipline, good character. >> get people out of poverty by feeling them good discipline and good character. then the paper goes up in front of the camera and paul ryan walks out. that's the last interview that paul ryan did with a local tv station. after spending the previous month and a half doing one, two, three, four of those a day. that was a dramatic change this the way the republicans are running the campaign. i'm not sure why that didn't get

more notice. also not sure why it didn't get more notice when an associated press conversation, paul ryan loyalists started floating their plans for what paul ryan should do after he and mitt romney lose the election on tuesday. these ryan allies spoke on conditions of anonymity to discuss private proposals they were preparing for him. some of ryan's biggest boosters are considering whether it wouldn't be better for ryan to resign from the house. he could write a book, saving america is a theme often bandied about. or he could teach at a university. he could go back to congress, write a book, he could be a professor. once he gets this losing the election with mitt romney thing out of the way on tuesday. we have seen this sort of leaking from one wing of a presidential ticket before, in 2008 with election day just a week away, conservative leaders apined to "the new york times" about what they wanted for sarah palin's future if/when she and john mccain were to win. if mccain loses she could emerge

as a bearer. her prospects in and out of government are among conversations with conservative leaders. the aides insist winning this time around is her sole objective, but there are signs she is making sure she is well positioned for the future if she and mr. mccain lose. zen days before the '08 election it became clear whatever they were saying about how confident they were that they definitely were going to win, the plans republicans were making and the way they were positioning themselves, including to the press, indicated otherwise. that was october 28th, 2008. seven days before election day. now this past week it's anonymous paul ryan loyalists speculating about all the wonderful things paul ryan will do after mitt romney and he lose this election on fuse. then this past weekend a possible case of revenge for the loose lipped comments to the a.p. about paul ryan's post mitt romney future. check this out. this is amazing. this is from politico.com and

kudos to them for getting it. campaign insiders say chris christie was actually mitt romney's first choice for the republican ticket. people involved in the election process said the campaign believed no one would be more in depth and persuasive at delivering romney's message. advisers thought christie would excel at campaigning. we'll play it. guess what, you weren't our first choice. if we lose when we lose, it's your fault for not being as awesome as new jersey governor chris christie. the romney/ryan campaign is trying very hard to project confidence and calm just two days before the election, but this thing going on with the paul ryan press is not good. on the record staffers and stat gists and surrogates will say how self assured they are. this is why they will win ohio and pennsylvania. if they were planning on winning, there would not be this kind of split between the romney camp and the ryan camp. would there? the guy who i want to ask about this more than anybody else in the entire world is the senior

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katie was a logical choice. she's been very fair to us the entire campaign. >> you daul that fair? >> yes, governor, i do. >> i certainly don't. she was out to get me from the get-go. >> no, she wasn't. the interview stopped because you didn't try. >> what do you mean. >> you didn't fight back. you didn't know the answers. you clawed your way back in. it wept fine. you gave up. >> it wasn't my fault. i wasn't properly prepped. >> a prep from "game change" the movie there. we had to wait until after the '08 election to realize the truly fascinating depth of the rifts between the two sides on the mccain/palin republican ticket. this year what i think is an emerging split between the obama and ryan side is turning out to be a thing to behold before the election happened. joining us now is steve schmidt. he is now an msnbc contributor. steve, thanks for being here. >> great to see you, rachel. >> am i reading too much into the leaks?

>> i think there's an insatiable appetite for process stories in a close election. there isn't a rift between the two camps. i talked to people inside the campaigns. people are very happy with the performance. of paul ryan. if he goes onto be vice president or if they lose, he has a big future in the republican party. he's going to be a player in republican politics for the next generation. >> how can the campaign both be super happy with him and there be no rift and the campaign be telling politico actually we wanted chris christie? i don't know how the stories come to be. i'm sure somebody is talking to somebody at politico saying we wish it was chris christie. but i have no idea. i doubt very much that's mitt romney's thoughts. he could have picked chris christie. there was no disqualifying reason why he didn't pick chris christie. he went with the first choice. and that was clearly paul ryan. >> so why are the leaks happening at all? to me the truth of the leak,

whether or not paul ryan really is going to become a university professor and set himself up for the presidency if they lose this year seems beside this point what is important at this point is people close to him are putting that out there ahead of the election, which undermines the campaign's confidence. >> i think a reporter gets an enterprise story from the editor. they call around. they get people on the phone who are friends with paul ryan. they say, what happens if he looses? people start talking. thus a story is created. >> in a discipline campaign they say, he's not going to lose. >> you don't know that those people are this in campaign. they could be people on the the congressional staff or volunteering in the campaign. i doubt that's the core strategic team that the romney campaign is having that conversation with the politico reporter. >> it's not the core strategic team. baa it's a really bad strategy. you guys knew what you needed to be saying to the press every day. you were on message every day.

you kept your presidential candidate on message every day. what does it mean when other people associated with the campaign or associated with the candidates are going off message? >> well, if you were in the situation that we were in four years ago and we were losing the campaign. the writing was on the wall. we were going to lose the election. and so it brings out the best in some people. it brings out worst in other people. the senior people on the romney campaign, both sides are confident that they're going to win the election on tuesday. so that isn't coming from the top echelons in the romney campaign, for sure. >> the confidence of the romney campaign, we both know both sides project confidence. there's more reason for romney than for you guys at this point in 2008. but you do look at the swing state polls coming out. rafts of swing state polls

coming out at this point. in 20 polls you get 15, 16, 17 of them showing the president leading. in the face of that, the sea of blue, why does the romney campaign see that they're going to win in the face of that. >> they're looking at the intensity numbers and the fact that the president on the ballot is at 47.5, 48.1, 48.2 in state after state. i think that's at the real danger point. if you're at 49 or 50, that's a very different deal. at that 47 or 48 number, romney campaign believes the numbers are going to break for them on election day. >> do you think that? >> i think there's a chance. i wouldn't be surprised. i think with my head, i look at all the polls, i look at the totality of the polls, and it's clear in the totality of the polling the president has the lead. i also know if that lead is at 47, 48, it's a race, anything could happen going into election day. this is as close a presidential campaign as we have seen.

>> i -- just in terms of my feeling on it, i'm a really bad predictor, but i try to tell -- i'm trying to figure out whether or not people are being honest when they say they really think it's going to happen. seeing the leaks leaks about pa future and chris christie, it makes me think that they don't believe it. >> they are very, very confident. they believe they are going to win this election on tuesday and we're going to see. we're going to know -- as david axelrod said, we're going to know in 48 hours. >> you and i will know exactly at the same time. >> absolutely. >> steve schmidt, always great to have you here. thank you. more on how difficult it is to vote this year and the people who are making it that way on purpose. that's coming up. when you take a closer look... ...at the best schools in the world... ...you see they all have something very interesting in common.

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we'rwith questions fromtump sombing elections.kies do you know where your polling place is? maybe somewhere around my house. mine's just, right over that way. well you can find out exactly where it is using bing elections. it's a good day for politics. which way do you lean politically? conservative. republican. well, using the bing news selector you can find news from whichever way you lean. (together) social on this side, financial. which party is currently predicted to win a majority in the senate? the republicans? would you make a bet on that? no. are you chicken? frustrated voters outside

the miami-dade election office this afternoon. they had come after the county announced it would open its doors to provide and accept absentee ballots today. but so many voters showed up that election officials were over well md and shut their doors. the democratic party sued to extend early voting after some voters were stuck in lines for hours trying to meet yesterday's deadline. >> what is it, five hours now? >> election officials are waiting for lots of potential problems on tuesday, especially in the key battleground states. in ohio, experts say that because of confusion or renewed absentee 200,000 voters maybe to cast provisional ballots that won't be counted until ten days after election day. >> there is a real chance that we will not know which candidate won the election in ohio. >> we're now at the point in this presidential campaign with

the case being made by each of the candidates about why you should vote for them is sort of fading into the background in terms of what the story is now. that was alluded to by president obama yesterday when he described himself just as the prop. the voters are the real point now. the story is not about a story for one argument against the other. the story right now is about the voters and it's about the vote and that story, frankly, this year is no less a partisan story than the debate between these two candidate. the long lines that stretched for hours and hours today in places like florida and ohio, those lines are a manmade phenomena in a positive sense in that people want to vote and are willing to endure long lines to do so but the length of those lines itself is a manmade phenomena. those long lines are long on purpose. these are not a bipartisan thing. they do not have a bipartisan

effect. those lines overtly favor the side that benefits from lower turnout, the side that wants the least number of votes cast as possible. and for the better part of a generation now, that has been the republican side. it's not liberal me saying that. that's what republicans them receives say. >> they want everybody to vote. i don't want everybody to vote. elections are not won by a majority of people that never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. as a matter of fact, our election goes up as the voting populous goes down. >> our leverage in the voting pop pew lose gous up as the voting goes down. that was paul weyrich speaking in 1980. the fewer people vote, the better it is for them. when the state of florida changed its election laws last year to make it harder for people to register to vote, when they cut down on the number of days that you could early vote, that was not some bipartisan

good government bill, that was a bill drafted by the general council of the republican party. when you look at long lines like this in cleveland, ohio, did you notice it's republicans in ohio this year, one republican county chairman in particular who said there was no need to length then early voting to make voting time easier for people because that would only serve to, quote, accommodate the urban, read, african-american voter turnout machines. this is not a bipartisan thing. the margin of victory is less than a quarter of one percent. an automatic recount is triggered. that recount will be overseen by jon husted. he's the guy who has been working for months to try to limit the opportunities for ohioans to vote. in florida, it's the same deal. if the margin on election night is one half of less percent we'll get a recount in florida,

overseen by ken detzner. the other swing state, where there's an automatic recount where the real clear politics shows the difference between the candidates is 0.6%, that state is colorado. the secretary of state is this guy, republican scott gessler. scott gessler made himself famous this year when he tried to stop mailing bat lots to those who normally got them. he tried to kick 4,000 colorado voters off the state voter rolls a few months before election day. he's working on another voter roll purge since then. if there is a recount in colorado, that's the guy in charge. in a way, it is heart warming to see people willing to spend hours upon hours in line in order to vote that. is truly a heartwarming sight and it's heartbreaking because not all people can do that. there are also people who made

it through hour one, nad through hour two, maybe made it through hour three but by the time hour four rolled around, frankly, they had to go pick up their kid or go to work or they were going to get fired or had to go to a doctor's appointment. so they had to leave. i am inspired by those folks endlessly, it's unrealistic to think that everyone can make that kind of sacrifice and it's frank leanne outrage that there are forces in our politics that makes these types of situations possible but not only inevitable. i'm talking to you florida governor rick scott f you're one of those people being forced to stand in those long lines tonight or tomorrow on election day, your country needs ou to do it not only because it's jury your vif sick responsibility but because